


Tara Paris

by phinnia



Series: Tara Paris Episodes [1]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 12:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16118780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phinnia/pseuds/phinnia
Summary: In the next universe over, Tom Paris is a woman named Tara Paris.She has some other secrets, too.Much of the diologue in this fic was taken from 'The Caretaker' by UPN, but there are bits that are my own, of course.





	Tara Paris

The Federation Penal Colony (Women’s) in the outskirts of Auckland was beautiful, a mass of leafy trees shading from summer into fall.   Kathryn Janeway looked across the quad at the woman she’d come to see.  
  
Dirty blonde hair, tall, in a pageboy cut, with messy curls in it.   Blue eyes, bright.   Slim, curvy.  Wearing the usual grey prison fatigues.     
  
“Tara Paris?”  
  
Those blue eyes looked up, scanning her like a tricorder, but nothing else.   Waiting.   Watching.  
  
“Kathryn Janeway.   I served with your father on the Al’Batani.   I wondered if we could go somewhere and talk?”    
  
“About what?”  
  
“About a little job we’d like you to do for us.”  
  
“I’m already doing a job.”   She looked toward the bench she was assembling with half her attention.   “For the _Federation_.”   The way she said it, it didn’t sound healthy.  
  
Janeway had read the file on Tara Paris before she’d gotten here. Everyone had.   Only daughter of Admiral Owen Paris.  Destined for command from her cradle.   Went through Starfleet Academy at her father’s insistence, and then served three years before an incident on Caldik Prime kicked her out of Starfleet.  She’d joined the Maquis and gotten caught on her first mission out.  So now she was here.     
  
“I’ve been told the Rehab Commission is very pleased with your work.   They’ve given me their approval to discuss this matter with you.”   Janeway says.  
  
Paris sets down her tools, gets up off the grass, and brushes herself off.   “Well, then, I guess I’m yours.”    
  
  
They walk through the somber early autumn trees, turning yellow and brown.  
  
“Your father taught me a great deal.   I was his science officer on the Araias expidition.”  
  
“Well, you must be good.”   Her mouth twists into the slightest curl of a moue, though, and Janeway’s not sure whether Paris is thinking about her, or herself.   “My father only accepts the best and the brightest.”  
  
She looks askance at this girl.  
  
No, probably herself.   That haunted look in her eyes, before it was hidden again -  that spoke of deep self-loathing.     
  
Janeway goes on anyway.  “I’m leaving on a mission to try to find a Maquis ship that disappeared in the Badlands a week ago.”  
  
“I wouldn’t, if I were you.”  
  
She spoke her mind.   Janeway liked that.  “Oh?  And why not?”  
  
“I’ve never seen a Federation ship that could manouever through the plasma storms.”  she says simply.  
  
“You’ve never seen Voyager.”  
  
“You’d like _me_ to lead _you_ to _my former colleagues_.”   She looks up and down Janeway speculatively.     
  
“Was there something?”  
  
“Just trying to see where the brass ones fit in that uniform.”  
  
Janeway laughs, despite herself.  
  
Saucy, too.    
  
  
Tara Paris, dressed in a rankless Federation uniforn in her least favorite color (red - and she looks awful in red with her coloring - couldn’t they have kept the gold?  No, apparently not) goes into the bar on Deep Space Nine to toast her temporary freedom and notes an attractive dark-haired fellow in a gold-and-black uniform about to be fleeced - no, currently being fleeced - by a Ferengi bartender.  
  
She wriggles over next to him.   “Dazzling, aren’t they?   As bright as a Koladian diamond.”   She picks one up and examines it under the light.  It’s cheap trash, like you’d find in this type of bar.  
  
“Brighter.”  The Ferengi insists.  
  
Tara reaches over and brushes the helix of the bartender’s ear with her fingers.   “Hard to believe you can find them all over the system.”  
  
“Th-that’s an ex-that’s an… that’s an … exaggeration.”     
  
“You know, there’s a shop on Volnar Prime that sells twelve assorted shapes for just one Cardassian lek.”  Tara coos, and continues oo-moxing the bartender.   “How much you selling these for?”  
  
“We were just about … to negotiate the price.”   The Ferengi moans.    
  
She gives him a little more oo-mox for good luck, and with great amusement watches him almost melt into a puddle behind the bar.  Then she sets down the tray.  “Come on.”    She grins at the dark-haired fellow - an ensign, by his pips - as they leave.   “Didn’t they warn you about Ferengi at the Academy?”  
  
“They did.”   The ensign says with a slight smile.   “That one was particularly slippery.  You seemed to have him handled.  What was that you did?”  
  
“Oh, it was a bit of a come-on.   Ears are an erogenous zone for Ferengi.   If you have clever fingers, well.”   Tara grins.   “I have clever fingers, I’ve been told.   Found that out in New Zealand.”  
  
“Is that where you’re from?”  
  
“I lived there for a while.”   She vamps.   “I’ve lived in a lot of places.”  
  
Well, that was true.   Mostly San Francisco, although she’d haunted Australia for a few years, and Alaska, and Mars.   And New Zealand, not to mention all that time in space.    
  
“What’s your name?”   the ensign asks.  
  
“Tara.”  she smiles.  “Tara Paris.”  
  
“I’m Harry Kim.”  
  
He hasn’t noticed her rankless collar, or he doesn’t seem to care.  
  
  
They check in at the Voyager sickbay and she gets the first, and probably not the last, of the grief she’s going to get about Caldik Prime.   She decides to go check in with Janeway, and surprisingly, Harry decides to come along.  Probably to grill her.  
  
“What was all that about?”  he asks her in the hall.  
  
“It’s a long story, Harry, and I’m tired of telling it.”  she says, making her height work to her advantage.  “I’m sure someone around here will enlighten you before long.   Someone always does.”  
  
  
“Tomato soup.”   Tara informs the replicator.     
  
She’s been craving tomato soup for months.  You _cannot_ get good tomato soup in Auckland Penal Colony.  She always wants tomato soup when she’s feeling premenstrual.   So now, tomato soup.   Yes.  A nice bowl of tomato soup.  
  
“There are 14 varieties of tomato soup available in this replicator:  with rice, with vegetables, Bolian style, with pasta, plain -“  
  
“Plain.”  
  
“Specify hot or chilled.”  
  
“Hot!”  She almost shouts at it.  “Hot, plain tomato soup.”  If she’d wanted _gazpacho_ , she would have asked it for _gazpacho_.    
  
It shimmers and releases the bowl.     
  
There are no empty tables.   There’s Harry, though, sitting with that annoying doctor.   The annoying doctor notes her existence, then gets up and moves.   Harry doesn’t.     
  
She sits down across from Harry and sighs.  “See?   Told you someone would enlighten you.”  
  
“Well, is it true?”  he asks.  
  
“Was the accident my fault?   Yes.   Pilot error.”  One too many real Scotches.   “Took me a while to admit it, though.   If I’d just kept my mouth shut, I would’ve been home free, but the ghosts of those three dead officers were heavy on my conscience.   So I told the truth, and got kicked outta Starfleet.  Joined the Maquis to keep flying, and on my first mission - my first mission, Harry - I get caught.”   She takes a bite of her soup.  “Gah.  14 varieties and they can’t even get plain tomato soup right.   So I got arrested again and my old man kicked me outta the house.  Now you know the checkered backstory of Tara Paris.   They’re right.   You should probably stay away from me.  I’m not exactly a good-luck charm, Harry.”  
  
He looks at her solemnly.   “I don’t need anyone to pick my friends for me.”  
  
She blinks, surprised.   “Are we friends?”  
  
“I thought so.   Why not?”  
  
“That’s … funny.”   No one had ever wanted to be her friend before without a reason.   Her curves or her skills as a pilot or her father or whatever.  Mostly her father.    “You know … all my stuff.   All the checkered backstory.”  
  
“Yeah.”    Harry shrugs.   “Everybody makes mistakes.”  
  
“You might be making one now.   Not everybody gets second chances.   Or friends.”  
  
“Why not?”   He looks at her with that solemn look again.   “Had to have been hard on you, with your father being who he was.”  
  
“I didn’t have toys, Harry.  I had model starships to play with.”   she sighs.   Not exactly true, but close enough.   “Accurate down to the last millimeter.”  
  
“Senior staff and Ms. Paris to the Bridge.”  
  
Tara picks up her tomato soup and puts it back in the replicator.  
  
“That bad, huh?”  
  
“Worse.”   she smiles.    “New Zealand made better soup.”  
  
“Soup isn’t the same everywhere?”  
  
“There are … regional differences.”   How can he _not_ taste the differences in the soup?  
  
Harry looks at her as they catch the turbolift.  “How much of that story was the truth?”  
  
“All of it.”   Tara sighs.  “How much of _most_ of my stories are the truth, on the other hand … well … there’s a little truth in everything.”  
  
“Like yin-yang.”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“Your job, Harry, is to find out where that truth is.”   She winks at him and takes her position on the bridge.     
  
Most of the other officers look at her like she’s nothing.  Which she is.   She smiles and looks at the screen the captain’s looking at.  
  
“The Cardassians gave us its last known heading, and we might be able to approximate its course.”  Janeway says, showing a map on a screen.  
  
“I’m guessing they were heading for one of the planets in the Terkiof Belt.”  Tara says coolly.  “The plasma storms would have forced them in this this direction.”  
  
“Adjust our course to match.”  Janeway directs the conn officer.  “The Cardassians claimed they forced the ship into a plasma storm and it was destroyed, but we’re picking up no debris.”  
  
“A plasma storm might not leave any debris.”  Tara says.  
  
“We’d still be able to pick up a resonance trace from the warp core.”     
  
They would, and she knew that, and so did the captain.   Just keeping you on your toes, Janeway.     
  
“Captain, I’m reading a coherent tetrion beam scanning us.”  Harry says.  “There’s also a displacement wave moving toward us.”     
  
“We might be able to disperse it with a graviton field.”  The first officer theorized.  
  
“Do it.”  Janeway said.  
  
“Initiating gravitron field.”     
  
“The gravitron field had no effect.”  
  
“Can we go to warp?”  
  
“Not until we clear the plasma field, Captain.”   The lieutenant at conn said.  
  
“Brace for impact!”  
  
And then everything went dark.  
  
  
Tara picked herself up.   Ugh.   That hurt.  
  
“Report!”   Janeway barks.  
  
“Hull breach on deck 14.  Com lines to Engineering are down.  Trying to re-establish.”     
  
“Seal off hull breach on deck 14!”  
  
“Casualty reports are coming in.  Sickbay is not responding.”  
  
“Sickbay, this is the bridge.  Doctor, can you hear me?”  
  
No response.  
  
“Paris, how’s Stadi?”   the captain asks.  
  
“She’s dead.”  She moves the lieutenant aside and closes her dead eyes respectfully.  
  
“Captain, there’s something out there!”   Tara could hear the slightest edge of … panic in Harry’s voice.  
  
“I need a better description than that, Mr. Kim!”  
  
“I’m reading … I’m not sure what I’m reading!”  
  
“Can you get the viewscreen operational?”   Good move, Janeway.   Step down to simple things.  
  
“I’ll try.”    
  
The viewscreen flickers to life, showing a strange, almost antiqued copper green spider-like device.   Floating in the middle of space.    
  
Harry looks down at his sensor panel and then up at the viewscreen again.  “Captain … if these readings are correct, we’re over seventy thousand light years from where we were.”  
  
“Oh … shit.”   Tara sits down in the conn seat.  
  
Janeway shoots her a look that might be annoyed, but underneath it, there’s half a smile, she can see it.  
  
There are more instructions.  Janeway makes her way down to Engineering to see about a possible warp core breach.   They spot the Maquis ship, but it has no life signs.  Harry is sent to sickbay.  
  
Tara took two years of field medic training.   “Harry.”  she shouts across the bridge.  “Wait for me.”    
  
He holds the turbolift and looks at her curiously.    
  
“I like to play doctor sometimes.”  She grins at him as she gets in.  
  
“I don’t think they want you to play doctor now.”  he grins back.  
  
“No, I mean almost a real doctor, Harry, with medication and everything.”    Tara laughs.   “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Oh, Harry.”   She clucks at him.  “Haven’t you read Freud?”      
  
“Was he the one with the mother issues?”  
  
“Well, yes.  Him, and Oedipus.”   _If there was one thing that could be said about Freud …_  
  
“Oedipus?”  
  
“Look him up later.”  
  
 _Freud and his mama issues, her and her daddy issues._  
  
They get off at sickbay, which includes a flaming console.   Good name for a drink, but it isn’t a drink.  Tara could use a drink right now, but she assumes she’s not about to get one.   Harry puts the fire out, and Tara checks out the annoying doctor.  
  
Dead.   _Formerly_ annoying doctor.  
  
Nurse, also dead.  
  
Oh, lovely.   No medical personnel to speak of.   Two years of field medic training isn’t going to cut it right now.  
  
“They must have been standing right next to the console when it exploded.   Computer, activate Emergency Medical Holographic Program.”  Harry says.     
  
A hologram shimmers into view.   “Please state the nature of the medical emergency.”  it says.  
  
“Multiple percussive injuries.”  Harry says.  
  
“Status of your doctor?”  
  
“He’s dead.”  
  
“.4cc’s of trianoline.”    
  
Harry looks mystified.   “Trianoline?”  
  
Past Tara’s field medic training.  “We lost our nurse, too.”  Tara says, setting an injured crewperson back on a bed.  
  
The hologram gets the drug itself.   “How soon are replacement medical personnel expected?”     
  
“That could be a problem.   We’re pretty far away from replacements right now.”  
  
“Tricorder.”   the hologram says.  
  
Harry hands it a tricorder.  
  
It looks oddly irritated.  “ _Medical_ tricorder.”  
  
Tara hands Harry the proper instrument.  
  
The hologram sighs.   “A replacement must be requested as soon as possible.   I am programmed only as a short-term supplement to the medical team.”     
  
“Well, it looks like we might be stuck with you for a while, Doc.”   Tara says.  She thought the old doctor was irritating.  At least this one wouldn’t ask any awkward questions about Caldik Prime.  
  
“There’s no reason to worry, I am programmed to treat any illness or injury.”  The doctor looks at a crewman.  “No concussion, you’ll be fine.  Clean him up.”  He looks at Tara and Harry expectantly.  
  
Tara opens her mouth, and closes it again, and then looks at Harry, and Harry sighs, and they start cleaning the patient up.  
  
“Do you drink, Harry?”  she asks as she’s cleaning up the guy that has the concussion.  
  
“I’ve been seen in the area of a beer before.”  
  
“What kind of beer, though?   Beer is important.   A man’s beer can make or break them.”  
  
“I usually just get whatever’s on tap.”  
  
“Oh, Harry.”   Tara sighs again.   “I suppose it could be worse.   At least you aren’t addicted to Bolian ale or whatever.”   
  
“What do you drink, Tara?”  
  
“Real scotch, straight up, thank you.   From the highlands.   Where the women are real women and the sheep get bloody nervous.”  
  
Harry almost falls over laughing.     
  
Then they get scanned, and people start disappearing.     
  
They seem to be on some sort of … farm?    
  
Looks like a farm.  
  
Yup, definitely looks like a farm.   Farm buildings, grass.   Plants.  
  
Tara sees Janeway and walks over to her.  “Captain?”  
  
“Don’t believe your eyes, Ms. Paris.  We’ve only been transported less than a hundred kilometers.   We’re inside the array.”  
  
“There’s no indication of stable matter.”   Harry has his tricorder out.  Good old Harry.  Good with an instrument.   Tara carefully doesn’t think about whether he’s ever used any kind of non-scientific instrument before.    No, that way leads to madness.    “I think this is some kind of … hologram?”  
  
Then the leader of the hologram (assuming holograms can be said to have a leader - this one seems to be a grey-haired old woman) starts offering them sugar cookies and says the neighbors will be arriving soon.  
  
Oh, boy, neighbors!  
  
And here come a fleet of presumably holographic neighbors.   All quaintly dressed.   And one of them plays the banjo.   Tara rubs her eyes.  Are we in a cut scene from Deliverence?  
  
Tara walks around and uses her own tricorder, and reports back.   “The crew is scattered around this … farm, Captain, but they’re all here.”  
  
“Move around.  Scan the area.  See if you can find anything that might be a holographic generator.”  
  
So she goes off with Harry and they are followed by a not-bad-looking holographic woman.   And a dog.     
  
“Hey, let me show you around.   The root cellar’s right over there.”   The woman says.  
  
“What’s down there?”  Harry asks.  
  
“Potatoes, onions.  But it’s real private.”  
  
Tara takes the hologram around the neck and looks into her eyes.  Ooh, not bad.  Dark grey.  Pretty.    
  
“Paris, she’s only a hologram.”  Harry says, walking off, impatient.  
  
“That’s no reason to be rude.”    She pats the holographic babe on her hand.  
  
“Whoa.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Sporocystian life signs.”   Harry says.  
  
That sounds interesting.   She runs down the hill to catch up with Harry.  
  
“What’s in the barn?”  
  
“Nothin’ but a big ol’ pile of hay.  Let’s go see the duck pond!”  
  
She seems to be trying to keep them away from the barn.  
  
“There’s nothin’ in there.  Hey, y’all want some devilled eggs?”  
  
Harry shoves his way past, and Tara more politely shoves her way past.  
  
It’s dark, and it looks like a cross-section of every barn Tara’s ever been in.  
  
“See?”  The girl says.   “Nothin’ but hay.”  
  
“There is a life form here.”  Harry says.  
  
“How many?”  
  
“Just one.   And I’m also reading some kind of matrix processing device.  May be the holographic generator.”   He keeps playing with his device.  Tara, don’t think about Harry playing with his device.  “Tara.  I’m reading several life signs over here.  A Vulcan and … several humans.”  
  
The grey-haired woman comes back, and she’s pissed.   “I’m not _ready for you yet_!”  
  
“Paris to Janeway.”  Tara manages to get out before she’s knocked cold.  
  
When she wakes up and staggers to her feet - just a bloody lip, and she’s had enough of those, she wipes the blood away - the Captain and several more crewmembers are here.  
  
“Very well, since no one seems to care for any corn, we’ll have to proceed ahead of schedule.”   The leader says, brandishing a wicked-looking pitchfork.  
  
The wall of the barn fades away, revealing what is probably the inside of the array.  
  
They walk down inside it.  
  
After that, everything’s a blur.     
  
She wakes up in Sickbay again.   Alone, except for Doctor Hologram.  
  
“What is going on?”  The holographic doctor asks her.  
  
“Tell you as soon as I know, Doc.   Computer, locate Ensign Kim.”  
  
“Ensign Kim is not on board.”  
  
Uh-oh.   “Paris to Janeway.”  
  
“Janeway here.”  
  
“Kim didn’t come back with us.”  
  
The captain makes contact with the Maquis ship.   Oh, good, Chakotay.  Chakotay hates her and the feeling is entirely mutual.   That means Seska, or Frisky as Tara prefers to call her privately, will be there, and Frisky hates her just as much as Chakotay.    
  
 _He used to like you._    Tara thinks.   _A long time ago._  
  
Oh, she’d slept in Chakotay’s bed a few times - Chakotay and Seska’s, once or twice - but then she’d been arrested, and sold them out, and that was that.      
  
Chakotay had obviously never seen the wrong side of a prison wall.   Had never known that sometimes you did what you had to do because you had to do it.  Not for special treatment.  For simple survival.   And the better your name, the worse you got treated behind those walls.     
  
The Maquis beamed in.   And they were armed.   Tara assumed one of the guns would be pointed directly at her.   Probably Chakotay’s.    
  
But no, funny thing, the Vulcan was Janeway’s operative.   So only two guns to worry about.  She could take one of them in a fight, easy.   Could take Chakotay with the right moves.  Tara could fight dirty.   She was good at fighting dirty.  Maybe the best.  
  
“I see you had help.”   He spots her across the room.   “What was your price this time?   Freedom from prison?  Latinum?”    She could see the unspoken ‘ _who are you fucking now_?’ in his eyes.  
  
She kept her face cool.   _So pleasant to see you again!_  
  
“You are speaking to a member of my crew.”  Janeway says, actually getting in his face.   “I would have you treat them with the same respect that you would have me treat a member of yours.   Now, we have a lot to accomplish, so I suggest we concentrate on finding our people and getting ourselves back home.”  
  
The Vulcan says a bunch of things that she can’t make much sense of because she’s not really trying.  
  
“Break out the compression phaser rifles.   We’re going back.”  Janeway says.   And she gives instructions.  
  
Tara gets the feeling she’s about the be left behind.  She doesn’t want to be left behind.  She runs to catch up.  “Captain.   I’d like to go with you.”  
  
“If this has something to do with what Chakotay said -“  
  
“It doesn’t.”  She shakes her head to make it true.  “I just … I don’t want to see anything happen to Harry.”   And that is most of the reason.   Chakotay can go hang himself from one of his own rope tricks.  
  
Janeway looks into her eyes and then nods.   “Come on.”    
  
So they go back to the array, and they go over and talk to … oh, it’s Banjo Man again.   Chakotay tries his calm-I’m-an-anthropologist act on them, which fails, and Janeway gets all redhead on them, which kind of works.   Tara would kill for hair like hers.   Then they’re transported back to the ship.     
  
  
Tara paces around her quarters and looks at the grey walls, the rankless uniforms, the standard … stuff.   She lies down on her standard-issue bunk and stares up at the grey ceiling.  
  
She replicates herself some chocolate ice cream.  It tastes okay, but there’s a strange aftertaste, like there always is in replicated food.     How no one else notices this, she has no idea.  
  
There’s a door chime.      
  
“Computer, who’s outside my door?”   she asks.  
  
“Captain Janeway.”  
  
“Come in.”  
  
She comes inside.   “Just wanted to see how you were settling in.”  
  
“Well enough.”  she shrugs, picking at her ice cream.  
  
“Something wrong with it?”  
  
“Does this taste off to you?”  Tara holds the bowl out.  
  
Janeway takes a bite.   “No, it tastes fine.  Why?”  
  
“Because replicated ice cream - hell, all replicated food - tastes funny.   Like the atoms are arranged slightly wrong.   And we won’t even start on synthehol.”   Good thing she’d gotten all of those bottles at DS9.  Spent all of her gold-pressed latinum, but it might be worth it.  
  
“Hmm.”   Janeway says.  “You could be a supertaster.”  
  
“A what?”  
  
“A supertaster.    Someone who experiences tastes more selectively than the average person.   It’s tied to certain genes.   What do you think of bitter things?”  
  
Tara makes a horrible face.  
  
Janeway smiles.  “Looks like you might be a supertaster.”  
  
“Well, that explains a large part of my life.”   Including why her father had thought she was a picky eater.   She’d always preferred her step-mother’s cooking.  Her step-mother actually cooked.   With real ingredients.   Grown in a real garden.   Her father just replicated things.  
  
She’d kill for a tomato right now.  One of her step-mother’s cherry tomatoes.     
  
“What are you thinking about?”  Janeway prods.  
  
“Tomatoes.”  Tara says.   “My step-mother used to grow them.   She used to grow cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, broccoli, berries … everything you can grow in the San Francisco area.  Right now, I’d give anything to just pick a tomato right off the plant and pop it into my mouth.  Just warm from the sun.”  
  
“We used to do that in Indiana, too.”   Janeway says.   “What breed?”  
  
“Oh, I don’t remember.   The yellow ones - no, orange.  Flaming Burst, that’s what they were called.”  
  
“My aunt Martha was a traditionalist.  Super Sweets or nothing.”  
  
Tara and Janeway grin at each other.  
  
  
They find this fellow floating in the middle of a waste patch that says his name is Neelix.   He says he knows his way around the fifth planet, so they go to the fifth planet.   He looks like a kind of stout-ish version of a hedgehog.  Assuming there had been a Mr. Hedgehog in Wind of the Willows.  There wasn’t, but Tara can imagine him playing the role.  He is cheerful and ingratiating and asks a lot of questions and seems to have no taste in clothing.   That suit he has on after his bath makes her eyes want to run off to new homes.    
  
Then they almost get kidnapped and killed by these aliens with seriously bad hair and even worse tempers called the Kazon-Ogla, all to save Neelix’s girlfriend, an Ocampa.     
  
Who was cute, but still.  Neelix.  Tell us ahead of time.  
  
But the Ocampa might be holding Harry.   So maybe she’ll know where to find Harry.  
  
  
They transport down into a garden, with the Ocampan girlfriend, whose name is Kes.  Tara looks around.  Sadly, no tomatoes.    
  
Shame.  
  
The aliens are kept at the ‘Central Clinic’, whereever that is.  
  
Tara pokes around among the plants.   Sniffs them.  Interesting.     
  
Then she runs to catch up.  
  
  
Tara is sent to find Harry in the ancient tunnels with Kes and Neelix.   She runs ahead of them and scans.    
  
Two life forms.  
  
“They’re in this one.   Harry!”  she shouts, hearing her own voice carry up the tunnel and echo.   “Paris to Janeway.”  
  
“Go ahead.”  
  
“They’re in this one.  I can’t see them, but they’re there.   We’re going after them.”  
  
“Call for transport when you have them, Paris.  We’ll meet you on the ship.”  
  
Then shortly later.  “Janeway to Paris.”  
  
“Paris here.”  
  
“The transporters aren’t working.  You’re going to have to find a breach in the security barrier when you get to the top.”  
  
“Understood.”  
  
“We’re a few minutes behind you.  Janeway out.”  
  
She spots two people in robes, huddled on one of the stairwells.    
  
“Took you long enough.”  Harry says dryly.  
  
“How could I let down the only friend I got?”  Tara smiles.    
  
B’Elanna glares at him, like she always used to, but she can be mad, that’ll help her fight her way out of here.     
  
“Don’t touch the barrier.”  Kes says as they make their way through some rocks.   A flickering yellow-white barrier is slightly visible.  “We’ve been told it can burn your skin off.”  
  
She goes through and drags Harry through.  
  
“I think we’ve reached the top.”   Tara says.  “Neelix, get out your phaser.”    
  
They burn a hole through to the sunlight.   Tara pulls herself up first and then helps the others out.  
  
“Paris to Voyager.  Can you get a lock on us now?”  
  
“Affirmative, but I’m reading only five signals.”  
  
She hears it before she sees it.  “Get down!”  
  
A spray of light from somewhere hits the planet.  
  
“Paris to Janeway.”  
  
Nothing.  
  
“Chakotay, Tuvok, do you read?”  
  
Still nothing.  
  
She’s going to have do something gutsy and probably stupid.  
  
“Prepare to transport everyone in this group except me.”  
  
“Aye, sir.”  
  
“You’re not thinking of going back there.”  Neelix scrambles to his feet.  
  
Tara shrugs.  
  
“Well, the fool needs company.  Take care of them, dearest.  I’ll see you later.”  
  
So fine, it’s her and Mr. Hedgehog against the world.   “Voyager.    Make that three to beam up.  Lock in on the other combadge and energize.”  
  
  
“Here they are.”   She says when she spots them.  
  
“Neelix.  Help me with Tuvok.”  Janeway says.  Tuvok seems to be barely conscious, and Chakotay’s got a broken leg, from the looks of it.  Great.    
  
“I’ll get Chakotay.”   she says.  
  
“Get out of here, Paris.”  Chakotay snaps.  
  
“I intend to.  As soon as I get you up.”  she smiles and slides one foot over.    
  
“You get on those stairs they’ll probably collapse.  We’ll both die.”  
  
“Yeah?    But on the other hand, if I save your ass, your life belongs to me.”    
  
“Wrong tribe.”    
  
“I don’t believe you.”  She creeps down the side of the stairs that isn’t falling down.  “You’d rather _die_ than let me be the one to rescue you.   Don’t you remember how cute I was in your shirts?”   She puts her arm under his and pulls him on her back.     
  
“I do, actually.”  He laughs in her ear - half a laugh, mostly pain.   “And how good you are with your tongue.”  
  
“Frisky would be jealous.   You must be still doing Frisky.  She’d _kill_ you before she let you go.  Isn’t there some kind of Indian trick where you can turn yourself into an eagle and fly us out of here?”  
  
“You’re too heavy.”  
  
“I am not.  I’m light as a feather.”  
  
  
She ends up in Sickbay again with that irritating holo-Doctor and Chakotay goes back to his ship and then she goes to the bridge to see what’s up.  
  
The Kazon start a fight, and Janeway asks her to take the conn.  
  
She looks at Janeway and grins.  “Yes, ma’am.”  
  
Hello, beautiful.   She’s been dying to get her hands on this thing since she’s first seen it.  
  
She does some fancy-ass flying, but there’s only so much she can do.    That bio-neural circutry was really something.   Weapons get knocked out.  The Kazon are vicious.   Scrappy.   Nasty.  
  
Chakotay flies the Maquis ship into the Kazon one, but they get him out in time.   Which is probably good for her, considering he owes her.  And he probably can order the other Maquis not to kill her.  Hell, he can maybe even convince Frisky not to kill her.    
  
Then they destroy the array.  
  
Well, one good thing came out of that.    
  
She’s not going back to prison.   Tara sighs.     
  
Not going to see her dad anytime soon, either.    Two good things.  
  
Of course, no tomatoes.   Tara never could grow a damn thing herself.  
  
Every silver cloud has a dark lining.  
  
  
She’s summoned down to Janeway’s office the following morning.     
  
“You asked to see me, Captain?”  
  
“Ms. Paris, you have a problem.”     
  
She raises her eyebrows coolly.  
  
“I’ve asked Commander Chakotay and the other Maquis to become a part of this crew.   It seemed the only reasonable thing to do under the circumstances.”  
  
“Will you provide a bodyguard for me, Captain?”  she asks, unable to keep a trace of sarcasm from getting in her voice.    Maybe she can get Harry.  
  
“It seems you already have one.”  
  
“I do?”   Well, that’s a hell of a shock.  
  
“Commander Chakotay said something about his life belongs to you.  He’ll be responsible for your safety.”  
  
She tries very hard to keep the grin off her face and mostly succeeds.  “I think I’m going to enjoy this.”  
  
“Don’t be so sure.  He’ll also be my first officer.   Everyone aboard this ship will report to him.  Including the lieutenant assigned to conn.”  
  
She looks at Tara.  
  
Tara blinks, confused.  “Me?”  
  
“I’ve entered into the ship’s record that on this date I’m granting a field commission of Lieutenant to Tara Elizabeth Paris.”  Janeway stands up and extends her hand, handing her the two pips. “Congratulations.”  
  
“For the first time in my life I don’t know what to say.”   Tara manages, putting the pips on her formerly bare grey collar.  
  
“You’ve earned it.   I’m only sorry your father won’t know.”  
  
“Oh, he’ll know.   When we get back.”    And Tara leaves the room.   Daddy will find out through his contacts.  
  
She ponders going over to the turbolift and jumping up and down in it and screaming, but that would be weird, so she goes back over to the conn and takes her seat there.    
  
And jumps up and down and screams in her head.  
  
  
After shift, she nabs Harry by the elbow.   “Have a drink with me, Harry.”  
  
“Isn’t he a little _young_ for you?”  Chakotay asks her.  
  
“He’s my _friend_.”  she says coolly.  
  
“Oh, sorry.  Be careful, Ensign.   She eats men for breakfast.”  
  
“Do you know that from personal experience, sir, or is that just a rumor you’ve heard?”   Harry says.  
  
Chakotay just stares at both of them, his mouth moving, but no sounds coming out.  Tara grins at Harry and when they get in the turbolift she starts giggling.   “How did you know?”  
  
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”   Harry says, with a little laugh of his own.     
  
“Oh, he has Frisky, she’ll help him get over it.”   Tara says airily, waving her hand.  
  
“Him and … who’s ‘Frisky’?”  
  
“Seska.   I call her Frisky.  She’s kind of like Chakotay’s dog.”  
  
“Not because she’s frisky in bed?”  
  
“Well, that too.”  Tara grins.  “It was only twice, Harry.   Well … maybe three times.”  
  
“This is one of those stories where I have to figure out the truth.”  
  
“Yes.”   She pats Harry on the cheek.   “This is one of those stories.   Might have been four.”  
  
They get off on her deck.     
  
“Replicate yourself whatever.”  Tara starts digging around in her closet.     
  
“What are you having?”  
  
“I told you what I drink.”  She holds out a bottle and a glass.   “Today, Teaninich whisky.   From the highlands.”  
  
“Where the women are real women and the sheep are bloody nervous.”   Harry says.   “One Katarian ale.”  
  
“Exactly!”   She pours herself two fingers and puts the bottle back in the closet on the shelf.     
  
“How many bottles do you have in that closet?”    
  
“A wide selection.”  
  
He gives her a look.  
  
“One bottle of everything from the highlands and two bottles of my favorites?”   That’s the truth.  
  
Another look.  
  
She sighs.  He wanted a number.   “Three dozen.”  
  
“It was only supposed to be a three-week mission!”  
  
“I had … a hunch.  It told me to buy all the Scotch I could afford.   I actually bought more than I could afford, but Ferengi love haggling.  And, well, I have clever fingers.”    She’s learned to trust her hunches by now, ever since the time she didn’t trust one she’d gotten canned.  
  
“You traded _sexual favors_ for _alcohol_?”  
  
“Oh, Harry.”   Tara sighs.  “I’ve traded sexual favors for a _lot._    It’s a thing you have to do.”  
  
“In prison?”  
  
She forces her face to remain neutral.  “Yup.”  
  
“Your father couldn’t -“  
  
She snorts.   “One thing you have to understand, Harry.   If my name weren’t Tara Elizabeth Paris, I probably wouldn’t have had to spend so much time trading sexual favors.   The better your name, the worse you get treated.   And I wasn’t just a traitor, I was a double-crossing traitor.    So that factored into it, too.   I was a traitor to Starfleet and to the Maquis.   You wouldn’t believe the number of people that tried to shank me, stab me.   There was a price on my head.  And this was in the secure unit.”   Tara stares out the window at the stars going by.   Three-quarter impulse.  “The only thing that kept me alive is knowing how much my father wanted to see me dead, and I’ll be damned if I want to give him that satisfaction.”      
  
“Your father really wants you dead?”  
  
“Oh yes.   I’m the family disappointment, Harry.   I was supposed to be a commander by now at the very least, if not captain of my own ship.”    Tara sighs.   “See, I killed my mother.   He can never forgive me for that.”  
  
“Oh?”    Harry’s looking at her closely now.  
  
She gets up and paces the room.   “He was away on Mars.   My mother was pregnant with me, taking a shuttle to meet him on Utopia Planitia, at the fleet yards.   And she went into early labor.   My placenta ruptured, and she got blood poisioning, which led to infection, which led to a fatal extra-antibiotic resistant staph infection.   She died a month later.”     
  
Tara feels two strong arms snaking around behind her, and yelps.   “What are you doing, Harry?”   Some of the Scotch slops out of her glass.  
  
“I’m giving you a hug.   It’s a thing that friends do.”  
  
“Well, you made me spill my drink.”  She licks it off the back of her hand.  
  
Harry licks the back of her hand, too.     
  
“Interesting.”   he says.     
  
“What?   I can get you your own glass if you want one.”  
  
“Did you kill your mother?”  
  
“True story, Harry.   A little tip.  The bad stories?   The bad stories are all true.”  
  
He spins her around.   “So just one story left for me to figure out, then.   No, two stories.”  
  
“I don’t think I told you two stories you had to figure out.”     
  
“I came up with one myself.”   They’re almost on the same level.  He’s an inch or two shorter than she is, but not too much.   He has brown eyes.   Almost black.   Deep, dark pools.   She could swim in them.  
  
“So the first one is how many times I slept with Frisky and her handler.   Could have been five.”  
  
“Yes.”  She likes it when Harry smiles.  It lights up those eyes in an otherworldy fashion.    “Six?”  
  
“Might have been six.”     
  
They are barely a breath apart.  
  
“What’s the other story, Harry?”   she asks simply.  
  
Harry presses her lips against his own.  
  
Tara is a bit startled by this.   Fortunately, she’s learned how to recover quickly.   Another of the things you learn in prison - how to think fast on your feet.   She presses her lips against Harry’s, and wraps one arm around his neck and one around his waist.   He has soft lips, very soft.   She licks them gently, and they part, and his tongue seeks hers out.    
  
Harry takes her glass and sets it down on the table.  
  
“Thank you.”  she murmurs into his mouth.  
  
“Any time.”  he whispers back.  “Scotch tastes better in your mouth.”  
  
“Does it?”  
  
“I tried it once.   Definitely better in your mouth.”  
  
“Could be the blend.”  
  
So he takes a sip of her drink, and kisses her again.  “Nope.   Unless it’s the blend of the Scotch and you.   Have to try you later.”  
  
“You can try me now, if you want.”  
  
“Not right now.”  he smiles at her again.   “Give me something to look forward to, Tara.   It’s going to be a long trip home.  I’ll take my pleasures slowly.”  
  
Strange, but … okay.     
  
A man who knew how to delay gratification.  
  
Harry kept getting more and more interesting.  
  
She smiles and kisses him.   “Synthale tastes good on you.  And if you had any idea how much I hate synthale, you’d know how much of a compliment that is.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. :)


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